This book tells the fascinating story of the rise of Neo-Scholasticism
in Italy and Germany. Author Detlef Peitz’s doctoral dissertation from 2005 has
been put in print, to the joy and benefit of all Catholic theologians and
philosophers. Here we have a painstakingly and meticulously erudite work on an
important episode in the history of Catholic theology and philosophy. Sometimes
the amount of information provided can be overwhelming, but it serves its purpose
in telling this important story, which is crucial for understanding the theological
conflict between modernists and traditional Catholics from the modernist crisis
around 1900 up to the Second Vatican Council—and beyond, up to the present day.
All the arguments currently offered by modernists and traditionalists were already
laid down during the years from around 1840 to 1864 with the publication of Quanta Cura by Pope Pius IX. The Neo-Scholastics
had an opposing force in the “The Tubingen School of Catholic Theology,”
especially represented by the two dogmatic theologians Johann Sebastian von
Drey (1773-1854) and Johannes Evangelist von Kuhn (1806-1887), who were heavily
influenced by German romanticism and by the philosopher Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph
Schelling (1775-1854). Another opposing
school is that of the Kantian thinker, Georg Hermes (1775-1834), a professor of
Catholic dogma at the Catholic theological faculty in Bonn. This faculty was
set up by the Prussian government in 1818 in order to influence the Catholic
Church and its clergy through enlightenment ideas. Another opponent in Italy who
founded an order of priests was Antonio Rosmini, whose Psychologism became a point
of attack upon the Neo-Scholastics. Anton
Günther (1783-1863) was another theologian, heavily influenced by Kant and
Hegel, who had quite a number of followers and who attacked the Neo-Scholastics. The book also sketches the importance of Catholic
periodicals in Italy and Germany for the promotion of Neo-Scholasticism.

The book is divided up into four long chapters: (1)
The Paving of the Way for Neo-Scholasticism; (2) The Rise of Neo-Scholastic Works;
(3) The Establishment of Neo-Scholasticism; and (4) The Main Points of the Neo-Scholastic
System.

Chapter One describes the painful rediscovery of
Scholasticism in the wake of the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, and the
tumultuous years of Napoleon after the Congress of Vienna. After the dust
settled, there was time to reflect on what had happened in previous years. The doctrinal
and philosophical heritage of Thomism was better preserved in the Dominican
order than in the Jesuit order. The Dominicans not only followed St. Thomas as
their official theologian, but saw him as the Doctor Angelicus and normative theologian of the Church, despite
the breakdown of Scholasticism within Catholic philosophical and theological
discourse since ca. 1650. Yet this heritage was preserved by thinkers such as Antoine
Goudin, O.P. (1639-1695), Luduvico Cardinal Gotti (1664-1742), and Charles René
Billuart, O.P. (1685-1757). The Jesuits were plagued by internal strife over which
philosophical discourse to pursue. Older Jesuits were attracted to Enlightenment
ideas, and the younger members of the Society favored the traditional Jesuit theology
and philosophy of the Doctor Eximius,
Francisco Suárez, S.J. (1548-1617), Luis de Molina, S.J. (1535-1615), Juan Martínez
de Ripalda, S.J. (1595-1648), and Gabriel Vázquez, S.J. (1549-1604), but there
was also some interest in rediscovering St. Thomas, a desire inspired by the
Jesuit commentators of Aquinas. But individual theologians struggled with
weeding out Enlightenment ideas, and some failed to do so. A seminary in
Piacenza, Italy was founded ca. 1750 to promote Thomism. Later on, towards the end of the 18th
Century in Mainz, Germany, the now-famous “School of Mainz” was founded, which
achieved high renown for its promotion of Neo-Scholastic Thomism, despite its
secularization in 1803 by the prince bishopric of Mainz during the Napoleonic
years. The Roman School is also very important, due to its influence in promoting
Neo-Scholasticism in Germany and Italy. The Roman School was situated at the Collegium Romanum. Its most famous theologians are Josef Kleutgen,
S.J. and Matteo Liberatore, S.J. We shall
take a look at these thinkers below. One of the first theologians to promote Neo-Scholasticism
in Germany was Franz Jakob Clemens (1815-1862). He did not simply regress into
the past and its problems and specific context, but used Thomism as a tool for dealing
with the erroneous philosophical and theological ideas of his own time, e.g., subjectivism.
His approach to theological problem-solving
was praised by Pope Leo XIII in Aeterni Patris
in 1879. Apart from the newly
established seminaries in the “new Thomistic spirit” of the day, we also find
periodicals such as Scienza e fede
(Italy), Civiltà catolica (Italy),
and Der Katholik (Germany), which
promoted the revival of Thomism.

In Chapter Two, Peitz presents Fr. Joseph Kleutgen’s Theologie der Vorzeit (“Theology of the
Past”), published in 1853, and his Philosophie
der Vorzeit (“Philosophy of the Past”), published in 1860. Because they were written in German, these two
works obtained a relatively wide readership.
Thanks to the philosophical and theological merits of these works, Neo-Scholasticism
was redefined in Germany. In them we
find a mixture of Thomism and Suarezianism. Anton Günter had criticized Kleutgen from the perspectives
of modern philosophy and of the thought of St. Anselm of Canterbury, claiming
that we have an immediate conscience of God. In these works, Kleutgen uses both St. Thomas
and Suárez to refute Günter. Kleutgen defends
Aquinas’ first way against the claims of Kant, Duns Scotus, and Suárez, and the
second and third ways against the attacks of the traditionalists (Bonald, de
Maistre), with the aid of Suárez’s thought. The fourth way is unfortunately not discussed
in the book, but the fifth way is defended, along the lines of Domingo Báñez’s
commentary, against the objections of Georg Hermes and Jakob Frohschammer. But as we shall see when we discuss the
thought of Matteo Liberatore, it is quite a difficult task to reconcile together
every scholastic tradition. Suarezianism
and Thomism in particular do not easily reconcile together. Kleutgen, thus, received much criticism for
attempting this reconciliation.

Hermann Ernst Plassmann (1817-1864) was the first of
the Thomists of the “strict observance” in the modern period. He was profoundly influenced by Fr. Antoine
Goudin, O.P. in his approach to Thomism.
Although he was a Jesuit and professor of theology at the Roman
university of La Sapienza, he later obtained
another degree in theology at the (Dominican) College of St. Thomas in Rome (the
Angelicum) and is for this reason presented
thereafter as a graduate of the Angelicum.
His main Thomistic work is titled Die Schule des Heiligen Thomas von Aquin (“The
School of St. Thomas Aquinas”), in 5 volumes (Vorhalle, Logik, Psykologie, Moral, and Metaphysik),
perhaps the most important Thomistic work of the period in Germany. For what has been considered to be a very
polemical work, Plassmann did not get good reviews, mainly due to his tone; but
that aside, it is a profoundly Thomistic piece of writing. He follows St.
Thomas very closely in all his theological and philosophical arguments (e.g., hylemorphism),
but does not fall into the trap of dealing with the problems of the past, but
directs his critique at his contemporary opponents inside and outside of the
Church. There is no going back and forth between the Suarezian and Thomistic
camps. His is a pure, unadulterated
Thomism.

The third important philosopher and theologian is Fr.
Matteo Liberatore, S.J. (1810-1892). Liberatore was first influenced by
Immanuel Kant at the beginning of his intellectual career, and he even writes
against Thomism in his Institutiones
Logicae et Metaphysicae (1840-42).
There, he takes a stance against Thomistic dotrines such as hylemorphism
and, in particular, against the thesis that the soul is the form of the body. In the early 1850s, however, he begins to turn
towards Thomism, thanks to the periodical Civilta
Catolica. He then rewrites his Institutiones Metaphysicae and Elementi, strikes anti-thomistic
passages, and throughout the rest of the decade gradually becomes a Thomist. In his work, Della conoscenza intellettuale (“On Intellectual Cognition”),
published in 1857, he defends, among other Thomistic doctrines, the principle
of non-contradiction against Kant and Rosmini (and his followers), the latter
of whom had argued for a distinction, if not a separation, of ideal and real
worlds. But Liberatore’s own argument is
somewhat flawed, because, among other things, he identifies essence with nature,
and thereby blurs the real distinction between inner and outer worlds. From this we can see that he also stands in the
Jesuit-Suarezian tradition. He does not
distinguish between ens and essentia in extramental objects. They are the identical in extramental objects,
and are distinct only in the mind. He somewhat follows the Suarezian critique
of the five ways of St. Thomas Aquinas, but makes a compromise and ultimately reduces
them to three ways, with the following three distinct starting points: (1) the
relation between cause and effect, (2) the removal of the incompleteness of
creatures, and (3) the eminence of each creature. How does this connect with his Thomistic aspirations?
Liberatore never answers this question. He was, therefore, criticized for taking a middle
ground between Thomistic and Suarezian positions. His later psychology is also an eclectic blend
of Thomistic hylemorphism—with its definition of the soul as form of the body
at the forefront—together with other Platonic and Augustinian elements.

The third chapter of the book discusses the
dissemination of Neo-Scholastic thought. In this chapter, the author presents some
lesser-known, yet important theologians from the Jesuit and Dominican
traditions, such as Matthias Josef Scheeben (Cologne, Germany), Thomas Maria
Zigliara, O.P. (known for his Summa
Philosophica), and Constantin Schätzler.
These authors did much to popularize the thought of the theologians
discussed in the previous chapters. Chapter
Three also discusses the works of other Neo-Scholastics such as Karl Werner,
who dedicated his career to the history of theology, as well as Alois Schmid,
who attempted to reconcile Neo-Scholasticism and modern philosophy.

The fourth and last chapter deals with Neo-Scholastic
philosophical and theological issues. I shall
limit my discussion to two topics, one in philosophy and one in theology. The first, philosophical topic is the concept
of ‘being’ as a metaphysical foundation.
This issue gives us a good sense of what is distinctive in Hermann Ernst
Plassmann’s Thomistic notion of ‘being’. Plassmann is convinced that in Aquinas we have
the ultimate metaphysical conception of ‘being’. In things themselves, he affirms, there is a real
distinction between ens and essentia (existence, or being, and
essence). Likewise, this is also a distinction between
form and matter, and act and potency. But
matter does not in itself possess act. In
itself it is pure potency. Thus, being
is the ultimate reality. This encompasses
not only sensible reality but also possible reality. Yet, can one extend this notion of ‘being’ ad infinitum? Both Plassmann and Kleutgen deny this explicitly.
It follows, then, that ‘being’ is not a univocal
concept. It would seem to be an
ambiguous, or equivocal concept. If so,
it would be very difficult to distinguish between the different types of
beings. But one must remember that ‘being’
is not a genus, and thus Plassmann uses the concept of analogy to understand and make explicit the concept of ‘being’. Being appears in different contexts, and thus
there is a tension between act and potency. Plassmann turns to the Thomistic real
distinction between being and essence to resolve the issue, whereas, as we have
seen, Kleutgen and Liberatore turn to the Suarezian doctrine of the distinction
of being. Furthermore, Plassmann posits
another distinction, that between subsistence and existence, because neither
form nor matter is, but only the “supposit” is, and things have not being in
themselves, but participate in being.

The theological concept that I think deserves mention is
the relation between the act of faith and grace. This has to do with the classical questions of
whether (and how) man’s natural abilities contribute anything to the act of
grace, and how supernatural grace relates to the human mind. Kleutgen emphasizes the connection between
faith and credibility, whereas Plassmann demands a strict distinction between them.
Faith must not be “of necessity.” Faith is not something formal, but is grounded
in the divine and objective act of grace (cf., Scheeben). The supernatural character of the faith is
important as well. The content of faith
has a divine origin, pace Von Kuhn,
for whom faith originates in man himself. Kleutgen agrees that faith has its own principles
and that it is a higher knowledge of all things. In this sense, faith grounds theology as a new
science, from where everything proceeds and to which everything returns. Kuhn also understands the term perficere to mean the continuing
perfection of man, his being able to improve, rather than conceive it according
to its proper meaning, as an elevation of man to the divine order. Kuhn claims that the classical natural-supernatural
distinction risks setting the stage for a mechanistic conception of grace. Constantin von Schätzler answers by denying
this and accuses Kuhn of being a Molinist: it is only a danger if grace is
turned into a mechanistic contraption, as if grace were of a worldly, human
origin, and as though it proceeded automatically from nature to a supernatural
level of being.

In the end, one must say that Detlef Peitz has made a
monumental contribution to the history of philosophy and theology through his
narrative of the beginnings of Neo-Scholasticism in Italy and Germany. One thing must be said concerning the setting
of the book. At times the words are written together, without spaces between
them (likethis), perhaps in order to save space, which is, to state the
obvious, quite annoying.

Peitz’s overall assessment of the Neo-Scholastic
movement is very positive. In his view,
one of the causes of the decline of Neo-Scholasticism—besides the Latin manuals
and the widening gap between modern science on the one hand, and theology and
metaphysics on the other—was its being too sure of itself, a phenomenon that
has happened within many other movements. Not much could be done about this, of course. But what can be done today, and is not being
done, is to present Neo-Scholasticism in a positive light in Catholic
seminaries and theological institutes around the world and to consider
seriously whether it could represent a better way of doing theology and
philosophy in the Church. (Of course it
is!) The “anthropological turn” in
philosophy and theology has been an utter disaster for the Church, because
theology and philosophy are seen as something that originates within man. This also makes the new theology vulnerable to
Feuerbach’s critique. The natural
sciences and society at large have turned their back to religion and
Scholasticism. This is lamentable,
because the Catholic faith and Neo-Scholasticism still have many things to
offer with regards to the assessment of the natural and supernatural worlds. This is true for biology, nuclear physics and
theology itself.